Today James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem, writes a letter to the Jewish Christians, during a time of persecution, to encourage them to live out their faith. He tells them that wisdom comes from the Lord and temptation is from Satan. James goes on to give them 4 instructions for living as Christ followers:

1) Be doers of the Word – “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Works don’t save you but they do prove your faith. James gives examples using the lives of Abraham and Rahab. Both Abraham and Rahab acted based on faith; Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Issac, and Rahab’s willingness to hide the spies and allow them to take refuge with her family under her roof while the Israelites marched around Jericho.

2) Don’t be prejudiced- It appears that favoring the rich is a problem within the church. So James rebukes – “Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?…If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.”

3) Control the tongue – “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell…But no man can tame the

tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”

4) Don’t envy – “But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”

More from James tomorrow so keep reading.

(James 1:1-3:18)

#bibleliteracymovement

#chronologicalbibleteaching

When Paul appears before Felix in Caesarea, his accusers say, “For we have found this man a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, and we seized him, and wanted to judge him according to our law.”

Paul responds saying, “they neither found me in the temple disputing with anyone nor inciting the crowd, either in the synagogues or in the city. Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me. But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward

God and men.”

After hearing both sides, Felix sends Paul back to prison but with liberty and rights to visitations. However, to win the favor of the Jews, Felix leaves Paul in prison for 2 years. “But after two years Porcius Festus succeeded Felix.”

Festus honors the Jews’ request and agrees to send Paul back to Jerusalem to be tried. But Paul, not wanting to be tried in Jerusalem, invokes his rights as a Roman citizen and requests that his case be appealed before Caesar – “For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar.”

When the Jewish King Agrippa II (son of King Herod Agrippa I who killed James and great-grandson of Herod the Great who killed the babies in Bethlehem in search of Jesus) visits Cæsarea, Festus presents Paul’s case to him. Festus does not believe that Paul has broken any laws.

So Paul again shares his testimony of how he once persecuted Christians but when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus his life forever changed.

Paul uses his life to teach everyone he can about Christ, no matter his circumstances or the cost to himself. Paul says, “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come- that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”

“Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘You almost persuade me to become a Christian.’ And Paul said, ‘I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains.'”

King Agrippa II and the others conclude that Paul is not deserving of death or chains but since Paul requested to go before Cæsar, tomorrow Paul is off to

Rome. Keep reading.

(Acts 24:1-26:32)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, is the new king of Israel, and he does evil in the sight of the Lord, so God delivers Israel into the hands of the Syrians. Hazael, the king of Syria, decimates Israel’s army, but when King Jehoahaz pleads with the Lord (one of the few northern kings who actually calls on the Lord) the Lord delivers them from the hand of the Syrians. God honors those who call upon Him. After Jehoahaz dies, his son Jehoash becomes the next king of Israel.

The king of Syria then turns toward Judah, so King Joash gives Hazael all the sacred things from his home and the house of the Lord. The Syrian king takes the goods and goes home, but judgment still comes upon Joash and the leaders of the people of Judah who had caused the king’s heart to turn from the Lord and kill the prophet Zechariah (2 Chron. 24:17-22; Matt. 23:35). King Joash is killed by his servants and his son, Amaziah, becomes the next king of Judah.

The reading ends with the Syrians attacking Israel and Elisha telling Jehoash, king of Israel, that they would defeat the Syrians. “And Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz,” King Jehoash’s dad. “But the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and regarded them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and would not yet destroy them or cast them from His presence.”

Elisha dies today as well as Hazael, king of Syria. Ben-Hadad, Hazael’s son, becomes the next king of Syria and Jehoash, king of Israel, defeats him 3 times as prophesied by Elisha—for God honors the king who came to seek and to honor the dying prophet.

Tomorrow we meet a prophet named Jonah who is in for a great adventure. 🐳 Keep reading!

(2 Kings 13:1-11, 2 Kings 12:17-21, 2 Chronicles 24:23-27, 2 Kings 13:14-25)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Today Athaliah murders all the royal heirs except her grandson Joash escapes. Joash’s aunt hides him for 6 years and when he is 7 years old his uncle, Jehoiada the priest, organizes a revolt. See, the Lord isn’t going to allow someone to wipe out all the heirs of King David because God is keeping His promise and working His plan to send our Savior through this bloodline.

So Jehoiada the priest makes Joash king of Judah and has Athaliah killed. While Jehoiada the priest was alive the king and all the people served the Lord. But once Jehoiada the priest dies, King Joash begins listening to the wicked advice of the leaders in Judah. “Therefore they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served wooden images and idols; and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of their trespass. Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not listen.”

Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, pronounces judgement on the people for turning from the Lord. King Joash has the people stone him and as Zechariah is dying he says “The Lord look on it, and repay!”. The Lord will repay this evil just as He promised His children in the wilderness. “It is mine to avenge; I will repay…” (Deut 32:35)

We end the reading back in Israel where the Lord is allowing Israel’s enemies to overtake them bc they will not turn from their wickedness to the Lord, although the Lord has graciously warned them over and over again through His prophets. “In those days the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel; and Hazael conquered them in all the territory of Israel…” King Jehu dies and his son Jehoahaz becomes the next king of Israel.

Tomorrow Hazael, king of Syria, goes up against Judah and we hear Elisha’s final prophecy. Keep reading.

(2 Kings 11:1-3, 2 Chronicles 22:10–12, 2 Kings 11:4-12, 2 Chronicles 23:1-11, 2 Kings 11:13-16, 2 Chronicles 23:12-15, 2 Kings 11:17-21, 2 Chronicles 23:16-21, 2 Kings 12:1-16, 2 Chronicles 24:1-22, 2 Kings 10:32-36)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

An excerpt from “The 14 Eras” booklet by Iva May:

The Divided Kingdom Era

2 Kings, 2 Chronicles 10-36; Obadiah; Joel; Micah; Isaiah; Jonah; Amos; Hosea; Nahum; Zephaniah; Jeremiah; Habakkuk (Israel – 209 years; Judah – 345 years)

When Solomon became king in 971 BC, he spent the first seven years of his reign building God’s temple. Afterwards, he married foreign women, amassed wealth, built an army, and began to follow his wives’ idols instead of the living God. He violated the regulations regarding a king’s character that God had given Israel through Moses in the wilderness (Deut. 17). At the end of his reign, Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s generals, led a rebellion and then fled to Egypt. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, became king. When the people asked him to reduce their taxes, he listened to the advice of his peers instead of the counsel of the old men. His threat to add to their burden created a mutinous situation. Jeroboam came back from Egypt and took advantage of the people’s anger, and ten tribes broke away from Rehoboam to follow him instead, dividing the kingdom into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

To keep control of his ten tribes, Jeroboam established a new religion, based on the worship of idols he had brought from Egypt. He mixed idol worship with the worship of the true God. Using the feast days and sacrifices of Israel to worship idols, he established two places to worship these idols, and he established a priesthood not based on God’s law. Because Jeroboam led the people to worship idols, he fell under God’s curse, and his whole family died. Forever after, he was known as “Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who made Israel sin,” and his name became a mark of shame. Some families from each of the 10 tribes returned to the southern kingdom to worship the true God.

Nineteen kings ruled after Jeroboam in the Northern Kingdom of Israel; each king acted wickedly and worshiped idols. God sent the northern kingdom prophet after prophet (Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, Jonah, and Amos), who performed miracles and called people to turn from idols back to the living God. The people never returned to God; thus, God raised up the Assyrians against Israel and sent them into captivity away from their land in 722 BC. This captivity fulfilled the promises that God had made Israel in the Blessings and Cursings.

In the southern kingdom of Judah, the people followed God as long as they had a king who followed God and loved His Word. One of the kings of Judah, however, married a wicked princess from Israel, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, the most wicked king and queen from the north. This princess influenced the king and his people to follow idols, and God sent prophet after prophet (Micah, Isaiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk) to call His people back to Him. These prophets prophesied of a righteous king from David’s line who would rule His people in righteousness and save His people from their sins. The prophet Jeremiah further prophesied that the nation of Judah’s sins would send them into captivity for seventy years, that the temple would be destroyed, and that they would serve their enemies. Instead of turning away from idols and to God, the people listened to the false prophets and continued in their sin. Jeremiah also prophesied of a time when God would write His law on people’s hearts, not just in the Books of the Law. Isaiah also prophesied of a coming Messiah.

What does the Divided-Kingdom Era reveal about God?

God Speaks

• God warns Israel about the ramifications of idolatry and disobedience through the Blessings and Curses given through Moses hundreds of years before they fall into sin.

• Major prophets speak for God in this era.

God Acts

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•

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God withholds rain, destroys prophets of Baal, provides miraculously for Elijah, and does great miracles through Elisha as a rebuke to rebellious Israel.

God raises up nations to oppress Israel.

God sends prophets to call His people to repentance.

God Reveals

• Rulers use idol worship to bind people’s hearts to themselves.

• Good kings lead Israel to worship the true God, while evil kings lead Israel’s hearts away from God.

• God continues to pursue a relationship with Israel by sending prophets to urge His people to repent and turn to Him.

Today we read the Song of Solomon also called the Song of Songs indicating that this might be Solomon’s best song. This book has been highly debated over the years. Some say it is an allegory of God’s love for Israel. Others say an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. Some say it’s a love poem between either Solomon and his Shulamite bride, or between a shepherd and a shepherdess.

At face value the song tells the story of a young man and woman looking forward to their marriage and then the pleasure of a sexual relationship within the boundaries of marriage. The couple experiences separation in the story but ultimately they are restored back to each other. The story points out that sex is meant for marriages between one man and one woman. Couples that honor sexual boundaries and the marriage covenant honor the Lord and reflect their love for the Lord to the world. The Lord uses the image of marriage as an illustration of His relationship with His people all throughout the Bible.

Later in the Story Malachi is going to tell us, “For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence…” (Malachi 2:16) And then Jesus will be questioned by the Pharisees about marriage and divorce in an attempt to get Him to misrepresent the law. Jesus will respond saying that the Lord allows divorce under certain circumstances (Deuteronomy 24) bc of our hardened hearts but it was never God’s intent for a married couple to separate. ”Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate… Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:6-8) God desires us to show compassion, love, forgiveness, and restoration in our marriages which displays the character of Christ to the world.

Well, tomorrow we get to read about Solomon and all his marriages. 😬 We are all a mess, even Solomon.

Keep reading.

(Song of Solomon 1:1-8:14) #bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton